This One’s for Nate and All Those Who Helped Him

If you think that you know what all junkies are like, you should read this. Not all addicts are the same, in fact many would surprise you. This post will tell you more about our son, Nate, so that you can get a more personal view of an addict. This will not be a memorial. I am not one for memorials but there are things in Nate’s life that will help you understand addicts better and there are so many people who helped our son that deserve to be thanked publicly.

Nate would have turned twenty-three tomorrow and in a couple of weeks it will be a year since he died. This is a very difficult time for us. In Nate’s eulogy, I spoke of the greatness within him. How he had tremendous integrity, work ethic, honesty, compassion and loyalty. I spoke of how those traits much more than fame or power or wealth define greatness. This sounds like the same old “don’t speak ill of the dead” b.s. that we always hear. The mother of every gangsta that gets killed says what a wonderful boy he was. BUT if you were at Nate’s service..If you knew Nate, you already knew what made him great and you loved him for that. I would be lying if I said that he always exhibited those traits. There was a time, about a year and a half, when his brain was so twisted by addiction that he was not great. We prefer not to remember that time, the Dark Time.

How I Think Nate’s Downfall Started

Nate was born a very fun, smiling child. We nicknamed him “Happy Jack” after a Who song that ironically was about someone who never let things get him down. At about the time Nate started school, he began to have feelings that he was not good enough, smart enough, handsome enough, etc. We all have feelings like that now and then but for Nate they were constant. I am not sure where those feelings came from because we were always very encouraging, but he did have attention deficit disorder (ADD), and a very smart, handsome older brother that set the bar high for him. Nate was a fighter. No one pushed him around and he never allowed someone to pick on some one vulnerable in his presence. But being a fighter didn’t work on his own thoughts about himself. In middle school, he discovered that alcohol would quiet those thoughts and make him more comfortable in social settings. We didn’t learn this until many years later. In high school, he sought out something that would do the job better and he found opiates, his drug of choice. To an emotional, adolescent brain, using drugs to feel better made sense and without a fully developed prefrontal cortex (see Part I – The Adolescent Brain), he could not fully comprehend the risks he was taking.

“Addiction begins with the hope that something “out there” can instantly fill up the emptiness inside.” – Jean Kilbourne

THANK YOU to Nate’s Friends

Nate had a tremendous group of friends that cared for him deeply. Some friends he spent a lot of time with. They tried to help him get straight and stay clean, but he was an alcoholic and then a drug addict before they recognized it. He had other friends that he saw less often but they were always there for him. Nate knew that he had great friends, but he never understood how much they cared for him. His low self-esteem and then his addiction stopped him from seeing that. Whether you, his friends, saw him often or occasionally, you never turned your back on him despite his addiction driven behavior. We owe you so much because you supported him and made Nate’s life better despite his poor choices.

“The truth is that almost two-thirds of Americans have friends or family members who have struggled with addiction. – William Cope Moyers

A Little About the Dark Times

Even in the worst of times, Nate still had the support of family and friends. He always held a job and was a valued and relied upon employee. He always had a place to live, whether it was home or later in a recovery house, half-way house, or place he shared with others in recovery. He took classes at community college (HACC), that he paid for himself. This is not what you probably envision as a junkie but that is what he was. He used opiates at home, late at night when we were asleep. On occasion, I think he used between classes at HACC. When he struggled to get free of opiates on his own, he substituted with alcohol. But your addicted brain does not heal when you are just substituting with another drug. To the outside world he would appear to be just another under-performing 19/20-year-old. Nate was an addict, a functioning addict like so many that manage to live a somewhat normal life and fly under the radar.

Maybe being a functional addict isn’t so bad. NO! There is a hidden price that the addict is paying that is not obvious to a casual observer. As we discussed in the science sections of this blog, addiction consumes you. Getting the drug that your brain is convinced you “need”, is the most important thing in an addict’s life. Nate said that the high from heroin was better than falling in love. I am certain that he never fell in love. There is not room in an active addict’s life for true love. Even though he was the most honest person I knew, he lied frequently when he was controlled by his addiction because you must lie to remain an addict. He stole from me occasionally even though he had a job, because he lost his moral compass to addiction. I know that there are other things, things that I don’t want to know that he did because his brain was twisted by the addiction (we called it drug brain). I know that the things he did would eat at him even when he had drug brain and that made him feel worse about himself and pushed him to use again. It is a vicious cycle that, as we know, the addict cannot break through alone.

We found out that Nate was snorting heroin early in his senior year of high school. We worked with him. We got him help and we naively believed that he was handling it on his own. He was not and those were the dark times during which he began to inject heroin. In an addict’s twisted mind, going from prescription opiates to snorting heroin to injecting heroin is just an economic decision. He was 19-years old when we learned of this and it was amazing how casually he spoke of this. His addiction was in full bloom and he was going to need serious help.

“You need to be bold enough and strong enough to let your loved one’s recovery unfold or not unfold as it is meant to, not as you want it to.” – Carole Bennett

Rehab and the Start of Recovery

We took a lot of money from our retirement to pay to put Nate in a quality rehab facility and step-down counselling program that our insurance wouldn’t cover. Once again, we were naïve and thought that one time in rehab, quality rehab, could bring our son back. While in the step-down program, living in a recovery house, and attending AA meetings, he relapsed. I have frequently heard that it takes an average of six trips to rehab before an addict finds lasting recovery. That is AVERAGE, some it takes many more times, some die before they ever succeed. We naively thought that we/he were special. We were wrong. Nate went back to in-patient rehab in a facility that insurance would cover. When he got out, we pushed hard, very hard, and got him to live in a halfway house. A halfway house has tighter restrictions and more requirements to attend meetings than a recovery house and he hated it. But the halfway house (Gatehouse for Men in Lititz), the AA meetings, and the support of the sober community helped Nate’s brain heal. By age twenty, Nate was on his way to fixing his drug addled brain.

THANK YOU to the Sober Community of Lancaster

By the time Nate moved back home from the halfway house we could see the signs of the old Nate, the Nate that we were so proud of returning to us. We had remained very supportive and saw Nate often, his friends were still there for him, but we know that it was the support and guidance of the sober community that allowed Nate to gain ground in recovery. There is no way that we can repay those people in the sober community that helped Nate, especially his sponsors and “grand-sponsor”. THANK YOU!

Nate was young, bright, caring, and honest. Everyone wanted to see him succeed. I learned from people in AA that he was a very inspirational speaker, a side of him that we were never fortunate enough to see. Nate also reconnected with his friends, who were happy to see the old Nate back. They stood by him even though they were all turning 21 and wanted to hit the bars and he could not. Usually someone stayed back to spend time with Nate while the others went out.

THANK YOU to Bart Fire Company QRS

While living at home, Nate began to relapse again. He was doing so well, we have no idea what triggered his relapse. We had no idea that he was having a problem again. Honesty fell by the wayside but for the most part he remained “our Nate”. We never saw it coming when he OD’d in in our family room, before dinner. It was January 2017 and we found ourselves beside two State Troopers in our family room, our youngest son sprawled on the floor while five EMTs kept him breathing and three shots of Narcan brought Nate back. Nate had returned to heroin and as often happens to someone in recovery, he overdosed because abstinence had lowered his “dose” and he overshot it. Opiates suppress respiration and as we called 911 his respiration slowed to almost none at all. Lucky for us, Bart Fire Company QRS was close and they started breathing for Nate. His heart was still beating so this action literally kept him alive until the Narcan kicked in. Bart Fire Company QRS saved Nate’s life and they gave us something so great, I doubt that they will ever understand. THANK YOU!

THANK YOU to the Ingham’s Powder Coating

Before his relapse, Nate had been working for Ingham’s Powder Coating in Denver, PA. Nate was a very hard worker and Ingham’s did not hesitate to show him how much they appreciated him. After Nate OD’d he called his boss, the owner, to explain. He told Nate to get himself better and call them, he would have his job back. His boss said that they loved having him work for Ingham’s but he couldn’t work there if he was using. Nate went into rehab for the third time. When he got out, he dove back into AA on a mission and Ingham’s stood by their word and gave him his old job back. We know how much the people at Ingham’s loved Nate, they told us. But I doubt that they can understand how much they helped Nate’s self-esteem by taking him back. THANK YOU!

“Recovery is not simple abstinence. It’s about healing the brain, remembering how to feel, learning how to make good decisions, becoming the kind of person who can engage in healthy relationships, cultivating the willingness to accept help from others, daring to be honest, and opening up to doing.” – Debra Jay

The End

After his third trip to rehab, Nate tore into his recovery with a vengeance. While away and in rehab he lost a very good friend of his that had been sober for three years to a relapse. This inspired him, he told me that the only difference between himself and his friend is that there was no one there to find his friend when he OD’d. He went to meetings frequently and even helped establish an AA meeting near home. We saw signs that Nate’s recovery was doing very well. He was more empathetic than he had been, more curious, more caring. He even had a friend of ours start teaching him to weld. He bought a welder and practiced between lessons. We had our old Nate back, even better and saw a potential bright future that we had not been able to envision for a long time. During this time Nate lived at home for a time, he lived in a recovery house, and he lived in a house with three other people who were in recovery/sober. All that I had read about the science of the how’s and why’s of addiction and recovery, we saw in him.

Then one Friday night in late July, after receiving his 6-month token, Nate overdosed on Oxycontin. He was alone in his room. If you need proof of how addiction alters your brain, consider this: Nate told me six months prior that the difference between his being alive and his friend being dead was that his friend was alone when he used. Nate joined him for the same reason. The “need” to use and to keep it a secret overwhelmed any thought about the ultimate potential risk.

Still Think You Know What All Addicts Are Like?

Nate was not unique. There are many addicts that you would never guess are addicts unless you knew them very well. There are many addicts who are now dead from their addiction. Nate was a hardworking, caring, contributing member of society. There are many addicts like that. You don’t see them. You see the addicts that are on the street, panhandling. They are suffering the same fate but perhaps they do not have the support network, perhaps there are underlying psychological hurdles, perhaps they are just not as good at hiding their addiction.

If everyone would take the time to understand addiction. Read about the science of addiction to really understand. There would be more compassion. There would be a better understanding of what needs to be done. And, hopefully, someone smarter than me will find a better answer than the ones that we have now.

Do you have thoughts or experiences to share? Please comment. Like I said in the beginning, this is a difficult time for us. I will probably miss next Monday’s deadline but please continue to check back there is still much to be said.